The Supreme Court kicks off its October 2025 term today, with oral argument in two cases. Some of those cases are notable in and of themselves—we’ll preview them in a second—but this is also a good time to take a pause and look at the docket (so far) for the Court’s upcoming term.

A few things stand out. First, the Court has already agreed to hear argument in 39 cases. And it will continue to flesh out its docket with additional cert grants through early January. (The Court will also grant cert in cases after that, but anything accepted after that gets carried over to next year’s term). While it’s a bit too early to draw firm conclusions, it looks like the Court might be reversing its long-standing trend of accepting fewer and fewer cases each term: The Court will be hearing 20 cases in its October and November sittings this year, which is 4 more than it heard in the same sittings last year. If the Court’s current pace holds, we might see upwards of 80 cases decided this year, a big increase over the low-60s of the past few terms. 

Second, there are undoubtedly more big cases on the docket at this point than there were the same time last year. Some of that is unavoidable given the Trump Administration’s actions: Many of this year’s highest-profile cases will be deciding questions regarding the scope of the President’s authority, ranging from tariffs to the dismissal of agency officials. But the Court has also accepted quite a few “culture war” cases, such as disputes about transgender athletes participating in high-school sports, gun control, and state bans on “conversion therapy” for minors. The number of blockbuster cases on the half-full OT25 docket arguably already exceeds the number of such cases on the full OT24 one. All signs point to this being a much more significant term in areas of constitutional rights and federal-government authority than the last.

Third, OT25’s lower-profile cases look generally more interesting than was the case for OT24. As frequent readers of this blog likely already know, while most media attention focuses on the Supreme Court’s high-profile constitutional law cases, those cases make up only about a third of the Court’s docket. The rest consist of often obscure questions on which the lower courts are divided. But these cases can sometimes be a little boring, as the Court accepted them primarily to resolve a lower-court disagreement and not because of the case’s importance. We’ll see what the rest of the year brings, but there’s a lot more meat on the Court’s lower-profile cases than we saw with the slightly boring OT24 term.  

So what’s on tap for the Court’s first set of arguments? The Court will be hearing a total of ten cases over the next two weeks:

  • Villarreal v. Texas (No. 24-557): Did a Texas trial court violate a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel by prohibiting the defendant from conferring with his attorney during a recess in the middle of the defendant’s testimony?
  • Berk v. Choy (No. 24-440): Like many states, Delaware requires plaintiffs in medical malpractice cases to file an affidavit from a physician opining that the claim has merit. Berk will decide whether that requirement is “substantive” meaning that it also applies if the case is filed in federal court, or “procedural,” in which case it does not.
  • Barrett v. United States (No. 24-5774): Did it violate the Double Jeopardy Clause for the defendant to be given cumulative sentences for violating Section 924(c) (criminalizing possessing or using a firearm during a crime of violence) and 924(j) (criminalizing causing the death of a person while committing a 924(c) offense)? The Government has confessed error, but the Supreme Court appointed amicus counsel to argue in favor of the sentence.  
  • Chiles v. Salazar (No. 24-539): Does Colorado’s ban on “conversion therapy” for minors violate the First Amendment rights of counselors?
  • Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections (No. 24-586): A complicated case asking whether a candidate for federal election has standing to challenge Illinois’s vote-by-mail rules. This case is significant because it could provide guidance to lower courts on when a plaintiff’s injury is “self-inflicted” (and so not sufficient to confer standing).
  • U.S. Postal Service v. Konan (No. 24-351): Does the Federal Tort Claims Act allow a plaintiff to sue the postal service for allegations that postal service employees were intentionally not delivering her mail?
  • Bowe v. United States (No. 24-5438): Does 28 USC 2244(b)(1)’s prohibition on successive habeas petitions apply to a second or successive motion to vacate filed under 28 USC 2255?
  • Ellingburg v. United States (No. 24-482): Are criminal restitution orders under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act “penal” for purposes of the Ex Post Facto Clause, an issue on which there’s a marked circuit split? 
  • Case v. Montana (No. 24-624): Under the “emergency aid” exception to the warrant requirement, law-enforcement officers can enter a home if they have an objectively reasonable basis for believing there’s an emergency. Does that “objectively reasonable basis” mean “probable cause”—the standard required to get a search warrant—or only the lower “reasonable suspicion” standard used for traffic stops?    
  • And Louisiana v. Callais (No. 24-109): A case the Court held over from last term, after it was apparently unable to reach a decision. It asks whether Louisiana violated the constitution by creating a majority-minority congressional district in order to comply with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. This is a potentially huge VRA case that could result in Section 2 of the VRA being effectively declared unconstitutional.

We don’t expect the Court will decide any of these cases until December at the earliest. But in the meantime, continue to watch this space for more previews of the Court’s upcoming term.